Once you’ve generated interest and start getting a solid stream of organic traffic, how do you turn those visitors into prospects and leads?
Active buyers aren’t just considering your solution, they’re also researching your competitors and these competitors are working hard to sway the purchase decision in their favor.
Not only do you need to guide active buyers through the final stages of the buying journey, you also need to make sure they don’t drop out of your funnel before becoming a customer. That’s where bottom-of-the-funnel content comes in.
And we’re not the only ones to say so. Growth advisor Gaetano Nino DiNardi broke the numbers down clearly:
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What is Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content?
Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content is content that targets leads who are in the evaluation and decision-making phase of the buyer’s journey. They have a problem, are aware that there are solutions to that problem, and are doing research before purchasing the software they think best fits their needs. The goal of bottom-of-the-funnel content is to turn these potential leads into free-trial signups, demo requests, or paying customers – or to get them to contact you.
BOFU content comes in different formats and usually focuses on your own product. It may demonstrate the product’s features, address pricing, dive into frequently asked questions, showcase testimonials, or share case studies.
This is in contrast to top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) and middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) content. The former aims to create brand awareness while the latter keeps leads engaged and provides them with the information they need to consider your tool as a solution to their problem before they move on to the decision-making stage.
The Importance of Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content for Your SaaS Business
By definition, BOFU content aims to turn leads into customers and is therefore a crucial part of an effective content marketing strategy. But there is even more that bottom-of-the-funnel content can do for your startup.
Keep leads engaged
Especially in a B2B context, where multiple stakeholders are often involved in the decision-making process, it can take a while before a lead goes from knowing about and considering your product to making the actual purchase.
Bottom-of-the-funnel content ensures that you stay top of mind while different stakeholders in the buying committee choose between you and one of your direct competitors. It shows them why your product is better than your competitor’s and how they will benefit from using it.
Address specific obstacles to buying
By answering frequently asked questions and addressing objections prospective customers, BOFU content smoothens the path to purchase. A classic obstacle in B2B SaaS sales is compliance, security, governance etc. BOFU content takes away any doubts and offers transparency on what exactly the lead can expect from your tool.
Convert those ready to purchase
Once your content has clearly proven you the better option and removed all obstacles to purchase, it just needs to give the lead that final nudge. Even when a lead has defined your tool as the one they need, something urgent can pop up on their end, or someone on their team may suddenly suggest another tool they’ve come across. In that moment, your bottom-of-the-funnel content needs to guide them over the threshold.
Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content Examples
There are many different types of bottom-of-the-funnel content and depending on the angle they take and where in the buyer’s journey they reach the lead, a specific content format can also act as middle-of-the-funnel content. That being said, all of the content types below lend themselves well to keeping leads engaged, removing any purchasing objections they may have, and converting them into customers.
“(Brand X)” alternatives” posts
These types of posts usually take the form of listicles that provide alternative tools to the one by “Brand X”. They are a good choice for targeting leads who are just entering the bottom of the funnel and haven’t made a shortlist of options just yet. They’ve learned that there is a solution to their problem (Brand X) but for some reason, they’re not convinced that solution is the best for them and so they want more options.
The trick for creating effective “Brand X Alternatives” posts is to present your tool as one of the alternatives and leave no doubt that it’s the best alternative out there. You can do that by dedicating more space to the description of your tool and by positioning it either at the top or the bottom of the list, before reiterating its strong points in the conclusion.
Hive does a good job at this with their Clickup Alternatives post. The brand lists its own tool at the top of the post, explaining clearly in which way it’s better than ClickUp. It also includes a screenshot of G2 reviews that show the brand coming out as the winner in a comparison with ClickUp, which it doesn’t do for the other tools in the list.
Keywords to target for posts like this are usually literally “Brand Name alternatives”, “alternative to Brand Name”, or “Brand Name alternative”.
Competitor comparison posts
Competitor comparison posts work well with leads who are trying to decide between you and your competitor. Rather than giving them a general overview of what your product can do for them, you’re focusing on how you provide a better solution than your competitor does.
You’re basically doing the research for your customers and making sure that your product comes out on top.
When creating competitor comparison pages or posts, it’s important to keep your audience in mind. Say you’re a CRM for enterprise-size companies and you’re comparing your product to a CRM for solopreneurs. In that case, your content should focus on how your tool is better for enterprises specifically, rather than just comparing its features with those of a product that clearly targets a different audience.
This Asana vs Trello post by Asana does this brilliantly by capturing the difference between the two tools within the first sentence. “Asana is a work management powerhouse. Trello is a Kanban board”, and thus, users who need more than just a Kanban board should clearly choose Asana.
Keywords to target for competitor comparison posts are usually something like “Your Brand Name vs Competitor’s Brand Name”, “difference between Your Brand Name and Competitor’s Brand Name”, or “Your Brand Name or Competitor’s Brand Name”.
Case studies
Case studies are great for showing leads how other customers have achieved success using your product. You can use data to demonstrate ROI, let your customers tell the story, and target specific segments of your audience by highlighting how companies similar to theirs are using your solution.
For extra effectiveness, add quotes from the customer directly into your case study.
Case studies aren’t typical SEO content and they don’t need to be. Not all BOFU content needs to be highly optimized for search traffic. The goal of case studies is to build trust in your expertise and success.
Have a look at these case studies by Culture Amp. They live ungated in the site’s Resources section, making it very easy for users to see how other companies are achieving success with Culture Amp.
Product-led use cases
Product-led use cases demonstrate how leads can solve a specific problem by using your product. A great piece of product-led use case content is all about getting the angle right. Instead of saying “Here is the product and this is what it can do,” you say “Here is how you can solve this problem,” using your product as the tool needed to come to a solution.
Ahrefs is great at creating this type of content and a good example is their post on How to Do Keyword Research for SEO.
And what’s better proof that you believe in your product than showing that you use it yourself? That’s what CoSchedule does by sharing how its marketing team uses CoSchedule for its editorial calendar.
It’s a highly effective yet a lot less blatantly salesy way of marketing.
“How to” search terms often lend themselves to product-led use cases as a how-to guide allows you to show potential customers how to solve their problems using your product.
Reviews and testimonial pages
With dedicated review and testimonial pages, you let your customers promote your product for you. On top of that, these types of pages are important real estate that allow you to claim hyper-targeted branded traffic. While big aggregator sites such as G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra usually rank for review-type keywords, you can win the first position and control the narrative if you have your own page targeting those keywords.
A good example of this is Lattice’s Reviews page. At the time of writing, this page ranks #1 for keywords such as “lattice review” and “lattice performance reviews”.
This type of BOFU content works best when not anonymous. That means having the photo, name, and title of the person who provided the review alongside the review text or as a label across the video testimonial.
If you have a lot of testimonials, showcase those of companies that are most similar to your target audience. And of course, the better-known the person or company recommending you, the more powerful the testimonial.
Types of keywords to target with reviews and testimonials include:
- “Your Brand Name reviews”
- “Your Brand Name testimonials”
Pricing pages
Your pricing page is an important piece of bottom-of-the-funnel content as pricing practically always plays a role when someone is making a purchase decision. Flow SEO founder Viola Eva says: “Users will search for your pricing even if you have a demo flow that only allows them to learn about your pricing after they’ve talked to your sales team. That’s why we advocate for all SaaS to have a pricing page, even when you have a sales team. The reason is that you want to control the narrative and rank for hyper-targeted branded queries such as ‘Your Brand price’.”
Have a look at this Plans page from Betterworks. It doesn’t show the brand’s actual pricing but it does capture search traffic looking for plans and pricing, and provides a transparent view of what the two different plans include.
Make your pricing page transparent and well-structured with clear calls to action. Include information such as:
- what different plans entail.
- if the pricing is monthly or annually.
- if it’s possible to downgrade, upgrade, or cancel at any time.
Also, add a clear call to action and highlight the most popular plan (or the plan you most want to sell) if you have more than one.
You can optimize your pricing pages by targeting branded keywords such as “Your Brand Name price” and “Your Brand Name cost”.
Product demo videos and feature tutorials
Product demo pages and feature tutorials show leads step-by-step how to use your product. They lift the curtain and take away any doubt someone may have about how your tool works and what they can do with it.
As ease of use is a big factor in user retention for SaaS, it’s a good idea to show future customers what working with your software would look like.
A good example of this is Leadfeeder how-to-use guides.
These pages too would be good to target with highly specific branded keywords such as “adding labels in Brand Name” but be aware that for most brands, it takes a while before people start looking for their brand specifically and as those types of searches are often low-volume, they might not show up in SEO tools such as Ahrefs.
Best Practices for Effective Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content
Don’t worry too much about search volume
While it’s always great if you can optimize a page so that it ranks well in the search results, the primary goal of bottom-of-the-funnel content is to convert. It’s not to attract as many people as possible who might be interested in your product, but to convince those who already know and at least somewhat trust your brand.
That means your BOFU content is targeting a much smaller audience than your TOFU content is, and the search volume for any relevant BOFU search terms you may find will likely be lower.
On top of that, a lot of great topics for bottom-of-the-funnel content won’t come from keyword research but from conversations that your sales team and customer support people have with leads and new customers. It’s these conversations that will teach you which questions leads want to have answered, which concerns might stop them from buying, and what convinced new customers to purchase your product.
Focus on your product
To sell your product, you need to show your product. Whether you’re including screenshots in a how-to guide or offering a detailed comparison between your solution and a competitor’s, you need to provide valuable and transparent information about what a lead can expect if they become a customer.
Tie your product back to its use cases, benefits, and features, and be specific. Avoid fluffy language and show people exactly what they cand o using your tool.
That’s how you take away their doubts and convince them to buy.
Have one clear CTA throughout the page
Bottom-of-the-funnel content has one clear goal: to convert its readers. As such, it should have one clear call to action that appears in clear language throughout the page. Experiment with link formatting, button types, copy, and positioning to find out what works best for your audience.
Match the buyer’s search intent
When you do base a piece of BOFU content on keyword research, make sure to match search intent. Someone searching for “Brand X alternatives” is someone who isn’t happy with the solution Brand X offers. So when you list your product as an alternative, focus on what makes it different from Brand X and how those differences make it better.
Keep it up-to-date
As BOFU content ideally focuses heavily on your product, the information it shares must be up to date. Imagine someone’s frustration when they read one of your tutorials, and then sign up for your tool only to notice that the way it works doesn’t correspond to the screenshots in your tutorial anymore.
When doing a video search for the brand Scoro, the first result is an outdated video from 2019 that doesn’t show the tool’s current features. Scoro does have a Help Center with video tutorials, but they’ve failed to build it out, update it, and optimize it. As a result, users need to jump through many hoops to find relevant videos, which means a lot of them might give up during their search and/or get frustrated with the brand.
Another scenario could be that your competitor comparison post positions you as the most cost-effective solution, claiming that the competitor’s solution is more expensive. However, that competitor has recently dropped its prices or added new features and now your comparison table is incorrect.
When the information you provide turns out to be wrong, you’ll quickly lose the trust you’ve worked so hard to build.
Measuring the Success of BoFu Content
If there’s one thing that remains a pain for content marketers, it’s attribution. While we know how many people read and engage with our content, it’s tough to tell whether an article or page has played a decisive role in converting a lead into a customer.
Attributing conversions to BOFU content is, however, oftentimes easier as you can track whether someone has acted on the CTA after having read a bottom-of-the-funnel blog post.
Here are a few things you can measure to get a better idea of how your BOFU content is performing:
- conversion rates, either taking into account all of your site’s visitors or calculated for each piece of BOFU content you have. Conversions can be account creations, free trial signups, demo requests, or paid plan subscriptions.
- button and link clicks, to measure the level of engagement.
- CTA clicks, specifically to measure how many leads showed interest in your offer, even though they may not have proceeded to purchase.
Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content is Worth Your Time
It can be tempting to focus on TOFU and MOFU content because the range of content you can create is so much wider and the search volume is tempting. Creating good bottom-of-the-funnel content is no easy feat but it’s crucial if you want to convert visitors into leads.
And if you’re unsure about where to start or feel like you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall, get in touch to discuss how we can help you with a comprehensive content strategy that gives bottom-of-the-funnel content the attention it deserves.
